


this, at least, is up to me

by lieyuu



Series: a softer world [ i ship dream smp and happiness ] [6]
Category: Dream SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergent, Deity Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Developing Relationship, Introspection, M/M, POV Alternating, Relationship Study, ehh sorta, george talks dream down from starting a war, it is so funny that i wrote a whole ass tag guide and still dont know how to tag this, theyre in that weird mix of neither of them have ever said anything but htey both know it intimately, very very mild character study? i think?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28159518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lieyuu/pseuds/lieyuu
Summary: [ there are many secrets i will take to my grave, but i don’t want loving you to be one of them. ]There’s a god standing alone atop the remains of a kingdom revolutionized.It hasn’t always been this way.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: a softer world [ i ship dream smp and happiness ] [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042497
Comments: 19
Kudos: 129





	this, at least, is up to me

**Author's Note:**

> title take from [this strip](https://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1242)
> 
> this is it folks,,,, the fic that started this whole series. at long last i have written it. it was born from me going "i just think someone needs to go look dream in the eye and tell him to stop being a little bitch and come to his senses holy shit" bc im very soft for that trope and also i am soft for dnf so i made it a thing
> 
> general don't send this to CCs, don't make them aware of its existence, etc etc. this fic is archive locked for a reason. thank you for respecting my and their boundaries.

There’s a god standing alone atop the remains of a kingdom revolutionized.

It hasn’t always been this way. 

-

George sits in the meeting room. He keeps his eyes focused on the sword he is sharpening, keeps his grip steady and takes care that he isn’t shaking like he wants to. His heart is beating a thrumming baseline to the rhythm of Sapnap’s pacing just outside the door.

Neither of them want this; one wants it less than the other. George sighs and puts down the whetstone. He sits up straight and cracks his back and says, “I can hear you wearing a hole in the wood.”

The door opens, and Sapnap practically charges in, feet thumping erratically on the ground. “You’re an idiot,” he says, unceremonious. “I can’t believe you’re actually doing this.”

“So you’ve said,” George says drily, rolling his shoulders and examining the blade. It’s sharper than it’s been in years, but if he’s lucky, it’ll dull again before he ever gets the chance to use it. “And yet here I am.”

“Here you are,” Sapnap echoes, before he shakes his head. His breath catches, and George pretends not to hear it. “He’s going to kill you.”

“No, he won’t,” George says, confident like he believes it. And he _does,_ really - but the things George believes and the things he _likes_ to believe are greatly separate from each other. He’s not good at telling which is which; someone else used to do that for him.

“He’s not our friend anymore,” Sapnap hisses through gritted teeth. He collapses onto the chair facing George and stares him down, dragging a hand through his hair. “You’re really going to make me watch both of you die?”

“Technically, only one of us will be dead,” George comments offhandedly, unscrewing the little jar of sword oil. 

“You are the _worst_.” Sapnap’s face doesn’t lose any of the tension lines, but he rolls his eyes and leans back like he’s managed to relax a little. “And if he isn’t already dead inside, he _will_ be once he realizes he’s killed you.”

“How poetic,” George says, raising an eyebrow. “And I thought you said he didn’t care.”

“Fuck off,” Sapnap practically snarls at him, but George just grins and begins applying the sword oil, because he knows it means he’s won. 

-

Gods play chess with their enemies. They do what they will, regardless of the cost. Dream sits on the grassy top of a hill and remembers the people who had once stood there with him, remembers the everything he has thrown them away for. 

There’s no point in memories, he knows, but if he focuses, he can imagine the phantom touch of a hand on his shoulder, of arms around his waist. It’s been _so_ long since he’s removed the armor, the mask, since he’s had casual touch like that.

He thinks there is something to say about that - touch starvation, and what humans need to survive. But he isn’t human - not anymore. He is a god, and gods don’t rely on silly things like _friendship._ Gods know how to move on past petty attachments, and gods will know how to forget the screams that haunt them, tears on a masked face in the dead of night. 

The ground flutters beneath Dream’s feet, and he puts a palm on it, flat, like a parent asking their child to settle down. His emotions are a controversy; he thinks maybe he should try and forget them, but there’s something in him insisting _remember, because this will be important._

He is shattered halves, both parts of the soulmates Zeus pulled apart. One, everything, nothing at all. 

A hand, on his shoulder. Dream mimes brushing it off. The action, though useless, soothes him.

-

“You’re stupid,” Sapnap says again, grouchy but soft this time, even as he helps George strap his armor on. “I cannot believe I’m helping you with this.”

“Sure,” George says, unconvinced, because they are on the cusp of war, and even Sapnap can’t ignore a problem like that. _I cannot believe we have given Tommy Innit the power to start war simply by existing in a particular spot,_ he thinks, despairingly. It’s stupid. He knows it’s more than that, that it’s about the infringement of power and rules and the _disrespect_ Dream sees.

It’s nice to pretend it’s about something as dumb as an eighteen-year-old walking around. 

“George,” Sapnap says, exhaling heavily with a hand on his shoulder. George slides his sword into its sheath and looks up towards him. “Don’t - don’t die.”

“Thank you for the advice, Sapnap,” George says solemnly. “I will do my utmost best to achieve that, but you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t.”

Maybe the joke falls flat, because Sapnap pales and he shoves at George’s shoulder. “Don’t even _suggest_ that,” he says, a little desperate, eyes wide and wild. “Really, George. Don’t die.”

“Okay,” George says. “I’m sorry. I promise you, I won’t. And I’ll bring him back too.”

Sapnap nods, slowly, and breathes in, out. “Good,” he says, then turns to go back into the house. “Take care.”

“You too,” George says, and watches him go. He looks off towards the distant walls, in the direction he knows a god is waiting. He’s been avoiding saying his name, or even thinking it, but it comes to mind unbidden now, like it’s been waiting for the right time.

Just a few hundred feet away, Dream is preparing for war.

George swallows around the lump in his throat, pushes on past the painful thumping of his heart, and begins his own march. 

-

Dream can feel him arriving like being watched, like fingers ghosting over the back of his neck. The moment before touching where you can almost feel the other person’s skin on yours. Hair rising at the lightest breeze.

An ex-king is arriving, with enchanted armor and a sharpened sword he has no intentions of drawing. But he will, and that’s the painful part. Dream knows, if he has to, he will draw the sword, and he will use it.

So Dream has to draw his first.

It’ll hurt, he thinks. In a detached way, he thinks he might feel something about it. But he has to, he knows he has to. It’s life or death - if he lets George draw first, he will not leave alive. Surely this is how it is.

(George is not that good a swordsman - Dream has seen him with a bow and arrow, knows he could take down gods with it. But he brings with him a sharpened sword and nothing more. In a spar, Dream would win. He always has, for years, for as long as they’ve had spars. He lets - _let_ George win, sometimes. But in a fight, he would win.

He isn’t sure why he thinks letting George draw first will result in his death. He tries not to think too hard on it.) 

-

George climbs the hill, and he sees Dream stand as he arrives near the top. He doesn’t turn, but he does place a hand on the hilt of his axe. For a moment, George thinks, _Sapnap was right_ and _at least I’ll have a nice view._

Then, Dream hesitates, and George lets all the fear and trepidation out in one long breath. Because it’s _Dream,_ standing in front of him. There are some people you walk into love with before knowing them, before knowing how. There are some people you love while barely understanding the word, infinite and cosmic and universally. There are some people you choose to love as your first and last everything.

It is easy, to choose Dream. George doesn’t know if he’s been chosen back, but it’s a sacrifice he will have to make. 

Dream turns around, and George’s heart breaks a little to see him wearing his mask, flat white smile hiding everything beyond the determined set of a jaw, the flat lines of his mouth. “George,” Dream says, and even his voice is different, so harsh it is trembling. 

“Dream,” George says in return. His feet move of his own accord, bring him closer. He drops his hand from the sword. 

“You’re here,” Dream says, and his voice is flat and empty but George can hear the sound of the ocean beneath sheets of ice, miles-thick. _I’d swim forever,_ he thinks, desperate, _I’d deep-dive the Mariana Trench to find you and bring you home._

He doesn’t know if mind-reading is a part of Dream’s new god powers. In this moment, he wishes it was.

“I am,” he says, instead, and hopes he can convey the full weight of his emotions in those two words. Dream’s mouth twists, in the way it does when he’s conflicted about something, and George has to hold himself back from asking, _what’s wrong?_

“You shouldn’t be.”

“When did we become like this?” George asks, softly, because the conversation has been made up of disjointed comments and lackluster words, and it has never been like this between them. It was never meant to be like this.

But there’s also the chasm between them of ichor and godhood, the chasm of war and bloody hands. Dream and the choices he has made; George and the choices he has not. 

“I don’t know,” Dream says, and maybe he means for it to come out harsh and dismissive, but all George hears instead is the way his voice _almost_ breaks on the last syllables, the way he knows something would be flickering in Dream’s eyes. “Are you here to stop me?”

“Not if you don’t want me to,” George says, and he watches carefully to see if there’s surprise. “But I think you want me to.”

“I _don’t,_ ” Dream hisses. He swings the axe up and towards George dangerously, but freezes when George flinches. His hand doesn’t shake and he doesn’t hesitate, holding it steadily out, but George can see the unhappy turn of his mouth.

“Dream,” George says, quietly, putting his hands out in front of him. “I’m going to close my eyes now. And you can do whatever it is you need to do. But before I do that, I need you to know - I am standing here, and I am asking you to yield, and to come home.”

George closes his eyes. Maybe it’s a death wish. He mentally apologizes to Sapnap, because he had promised he wouldn’t die, and now he’s practically walking into it with open arms. It’s alright; it’s Dream. If this is how he goes, it’s how he goes. He’s spent his life in this world sitting by and letting bad things happen to the people he loves; if this is the hill he will die on (ha), so be it. 

There is a long, long pause.

Something lands on the ground, with the rustle of grass and the sound of metal striking stone. George opens his eyes to see the axe, fallen, Dream staring at him with something unreadable in his expression.

The way Dream backs down is not unlike the way he rose up; slow, steady, tunnel-visioned on George the whole way. His knees are quiet when they hit the grass, and his hands rest mostly still for once, flexing against the fabric of his jeans.

They move, still slowly, towards the mask, undo the ties, drop it on the ground. A dizzying wave of relief hits George: it’s dry land after being lost at sea, rain after years of drought. It’s still Dream, beneath the bravado and the power and the stupid white mask. Still Dream looking up at him with gold-green eyes - watery, George notices - and open face.

“Okay,” Dream says, softly. “I yield.”

There will be apologies, later. Tears and all, words gasped through sobs. Quiet murmuring, soft hands, whispered iterations of _it’s not okay right now but one day it will be._ They will go to Sapnap and Eret and L’Manberg, say the words that need saying. They will face what may come, together.

For now, George holds out a hand to Dream, and he takes it, and it’s the way it’s meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> this is sort of the finale/climax of this series but it will not be the last installment, so no worries there!
> 
> stay safe everyone; comments and kudos much appreciated


End file.
